Rick Salutin On Teacher Unions

We seem to be in the constant throes of anti-union sentiment during a time they are most needed. The right wing, including Ontario Conservative leader young Tim Hudak, seems to be especially enamored of the phrases "union bosses" and "workplace democracy," both thinly-disguised anti-union euphemisms. And now that teachers are taking their fight against Dalton McGuinty's theft of their collective bargaining rights into the schools, we can expect more self-serving pontifications from the usual suspects.

Amidst all of the hysterical propaganda, in his column today Rick Salutin offers a timely reminder of why teachers, who he describes as the only ones who can save our schools, need their unions to speak on their behalf.

Well-worth the read as a timely reminder to those who like to respond exclusively with their hearts instead of making a little room for their heads as well.

A Retired Administrator Sets The Record Straight

As he tries to appear tough for the upcoming byelections, Ontario's self-proclaimed Education Premier, Dalton McGuinty, has been indulging in the kind of demagoguery that is an affront to critical thinkers everywhere. I was therefore pleased to read this article by Tom Roden, a retired vice-principal, attempting to puncture some of the myths about teaching:

Just don’t tell me teachers are overpaid

Don’t make savings on our backs: End Catholic school funding This opinion article is in response to Ontario’s Liberal government as it attacks public school teachers in an attempt to alleviate some fiscal problems and increase their chances in two byelections. It is also in response to those praising Catholic teachers for accepting unreasonable demands from the provincial government.

It comes from the perspective of a retired teacher who has a reasonable pension because I paid for it my entire career. I believe my teaching career was relatively routine and will use examples from it to illustrate.

Teachers are not well paid given the academic requirements, responsibilities, and stress of the job. They are required, as a bare minimum, to have at least five years of university. Most have more. In addition, any of the considerable numbers of teachers that I know work far more than the standard 2,000 hours per year. Any of their male friends in industry, with comparable responsibilities and academic qualifications, have far greater salaries. This income disparity is not as obvious with women because teaching is one of the few areas in which salaries are not gender-dependent.

I knew salaries in teaching were not great when I entered the profession, so I am not whining about it. Just do not tell me that I was well paid.

After graduating from McMaster University, I worked in the hourly personnel department at Ford Motor Company for nine and a half months. It was not until my fifth year of teaching that my salary equalled my earnings at Ford. This income disparity is the reason that it is very difficult to attract technical teachers. Most tradesmen/women are not willing to accept a decrease in their salary of approximately 50 per cent.

Just as I was retiring, I was kidded by a pick-up hockey teammate, who works in management in industry, with the often-used “overpaid, underworked school teacher” line.

I replied: “I just retired as a vice-principal of a school of 1,600 people (including students, teachers, secretaries, caretakers, cafeteria staff). My salary was $75,000. If I were assistant plant manager of some factory that has 1,600 employees, would I have made $75,000?” He replied that I would have been paid at least double that.

Again, I am not whining because I knew what I was getting into when I started teaching.

Retirement gratuities are common in industry, as are sick leave plans. My golfing buddies who retired from industry have their benefits paid, most until death. The minute I retired, I had to pay for all benefits. Because of cost, I did not pick up a dental plan. Again, I am not whining. However, if teaching is to be compared to industry, make a fair comparison.

It should be noted that teaching is considered more stressful than almost any other job in society.

Also, much of the media mislead the public because, I believe, they are afraid to raise the issue of public funding for separate schools.

It is just plain wrong to fund Roman Catholic schools but deny that funding to all others. The United Nations has twice condemned the Province of Ontario for this discriminatory practice.

As well, the duplication of services squanders billions of dollars annually. William J. Phillips of the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods of Ontario (urbanneighbourhoods.ca) presented a study estimating the duplication of services costs Ontario taxpayers between 1.27 and 1.59 billion extra dollars annually.

In addition, separate school students cost more. Using Ministry of Education figures for 2009-10, Catholic students use 38 per cent of education funding, but comprise only 32 per cent of the total of students in Ontario. Each separate school student costs $12,4440.42 while each public school student costs $9,468.46, a difference of $2,971.96. For the 659,392 separate school students in Ontario, that is an annual $2 billion ($1,959,686,648) more than would be spent if they were public school students.

Combining those two facets, and because some of the extra per pupil cost for separate schools is included in the figures in Phillips’ study, we could save approximately $2.5 billion to $3 billion annually by having one publicly funded, secular school system while maintaining the same quality of education. That saving would negate the need to attack teacher contracts.

Anyone who feels the need to have their child attend a religious school can do it on their own dime, as is done with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim schools, among others.

Is it possible that Catholic teachers are willing to give up so much in order to retain their privileged position?

Tom Roden lives in Grimsby.

That Man Behind the Curtain

While I strongly believe in being critical of unions when their behaviour warrants it, I am steadfast in my belief that they serve a vital role for the working person, which, essentially, is all of us, at least until retirement. I therefore must disagree with those who claim that the harsh measures about to be imposed by the McGuinty government of Ontario are somehow at least partly attributable to union intransigence.

In his Star column this morning, Martin Regg Cohn offers a good analysis of the politics motivating Mr. McGuinty as the legislature prepares to resume tomorrow to deal with something called the Putting Students First Act, a patently manipulative title confirming all that Mr. Orwell warned us about when he wrote his seminal essay Politics and the English Language.

While arguing that the legislation is little more than political theater designed to bolster the image of the Liberals, Cohn lays some of the blame at the feet of the federations that refused to negotiate. The problem with such a position, as I have previously argued, is the fact that the government never offered even the semblance of bargaining in good faith, essentially saying that the teacher groups had a choice: either accept the terms or have them legislated, the only flexibility being in how the stipulated savings would be effected, as seen in the OECTA deal that will now apparently form the basis of the legislation.

So what is my point here? Despite those who claim unions' intransigence has led to this pending legislation, from my perspective a capitulation to the gun put to their heads would have more seriously impaired faith in the efficacy of unions. To sell out its membership, as OECTA did by legitimizing a process that needlessly violates all good-faith concepts with which I am familiar, would have done far more damage than a steadfast refusal to return to the negotiating table.

And, of course, one thing the public needs to remember in this highly-charged political circus is the fact that a wage-freeze is something that teacher unions were amenable to almost from the beginning.

Just another one of those inconvenient truths, I guess, as Mr. McGuinty urges everyone to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Language Unbefitting a Govenment

As a retired high school teacher, I follow educational developments within Ontario but only occasionally write about them, my bias making most such posts rather predictable. That being said, however, I feel compelled to add to the commentary I have previously made about the 'education premier,' Dalton McGuinty and his henchwoman, Education Minister Laurel Broten.

Perhaps desperate to appear tough in anticipation of the two byelections coming up in September, McGuinty and Broten have been ratcheting up their confrontational and demagogic language as they try to create a sense of crisis about the upcoming school year.

As reported in The Star, yesterday Minister Broten offered a preview of the legislation the Liberals are prepared to introduce should contracts not be in place before school opens. Not only do I object to the crisis atmosphere such a preview creates but also, and more especially, the demagogic language that plays to the worst prejudices the general public has about teachers:

“I don’t believe the average Ontario worker would expect to get a 5.5 per cent pay increase after taking the summer off and refusing to negotiate,” Broten said in a shot at unions representing elementary and high school teachers that walked away from bargaining with the province.

The figure dangled is misleading, since teachers have already offered a two-year wage freeze, and only refers to an average figure that less-experienced teachers would receive as they move up the grid, where the number of years in the classroom is recognized with established salary increases.

Once again, despite its occasional lofty rhetoric, the McGuinty cabal, in its willingness to be deeply divisive, has revealed its unfitness to govern.

Words, Words, Words

As a retired English teacher and a lifelong lover of books, I have always been fascinated by words, both what they actually mean and how they are used to influence and manipulate. As the years have gone by, I have become especially interested in the political uses and abuses of language along the lines described in George Orwell's seminal essay, Politics and the English Language, the latter of which I would explore every year with my senior classes.

As I noted in an earlier post, the power of language to curb liberty and undermine free and critical thought is something we are witness to on a regular basis, and it is only by being familiar with these techniques that we can, to some extent, guard against them and recognize perversions of truth when they occur.

Orwell was well-aware of these dangers when he wrote his essay 56 years ago, and the problem has become so extensive that many of us almost automatically tune out when politicians or other 'leaders' open their mouths.

In Ontario, we are currently witness to a barrage of demagoguery and euphemisms from the McGuinty government in its battles against teachers and doctors. Take, for example, Education Minister Laurel Broten, whose government insists on a two-year pay freeze for teachers and the elimination of the retirement gratuity that exists in lieu of any post-retirement benefits. When she says she is choosing full day kindergarten and smaller elementary class sizes over teachers' paycheques, she is awakening latent public antipathy against 'greedy teachers', a pretty obvious subtext of her public pronouncements.

When she says, “I am asking the unions and the teachers to come to the table and work with us,” insisting she is “not negotiating in the media,” that is precisely what she is doing, of course.

And then there is her strange use of the word 'negotiation', which denotes a give and take to arrive at a reasonable solution. However, in this context, since she and McGuinty have made clear there is to be no give, only take, (OSSTF, for example, did offer to accept a two-year-wage freeze but not the end of the gratuity) 'negotiate' becomes a euphemism for saving the government the political embarrassment of having to strip away collective bargaining rights at some political cost to the party.

The same, of course, applies to the 'negotiations' the province is conducting with doctors. When Health Minister Deb Matthews says she’s disappointed that the OMA rejected her offer, what she is really saying, since the word 'offer' is a euphemism for 'ultimatum', is that she is sorry that the medical profession has not capitulated to her government's demands. That negotiation is not possible is attested to by the fact that she and McGuinty rejected the OMA's offer of a pay freeze.

No matter where we might stand on the direction being taken by the McGuinty government, it is imperative that all of us recognize and decry tactics that take us further and further from a healthy state of democracy.